Canterbury men in semi-finals

Press, 30 August 1989, Page 72

Canterbury men in semi-finals

Canterbury A secured a place in the semi-finals of the Challenge Shield section at the national men’s hockey tournament with a 5-0 win against Hawke’s Bay at Whangarei yesterday. Canterbury’s main pool confrontation is today when it plays Wellington A and the winner of the game will finish at the top of the pool and avoid a semi-final clash with Auckland which has been in awesome form. After a 14-0 thumping of Wairarapa on Monday, Auckland had its second big win of the tournament beating Manawatu, 9-2,

yesterday. Its final pool game is against the host, Northland today, but it is unlikely to be troubled. The Canterbury A coach, Ewen Holstein, said yesterday’s match was frustrating. Hawke’s Bay did not want ball boys which slowed the game down, and it also pulled all its players back on defence for much of the game. Canterbury forced 18 penalty-corners to three — a measure of its dominance — but there was further frustration in this area. The Hawke’s Bay goalkeeper lay down at the penalty-corners test-

ing the umpires’ interpretation of a new rule this season which was designed to prevent goalkeepers laying across goal-mouths to block pen-alty-corner hits. Chris Leslie, the Canterbury captain, questioned the umpires at half-time regarding the rule and was told that unless the goalkeeper lay down when the ball was being hit out from the backline a penalty-stroke would not be awarded.

Mr Holstein said Canterbury put together some impressive passing movements yesterday but

would need to be more assertive against Wellington today. Leslie (3), Richard Schoeman and Mike Skilton scored Canterbury’s goals.

Canterbury B had its first win of the tournament in the Newman’s Trophy section when it beat the West Coast, 3-1, repeating a similar result against the same team at Queen’s Birthday weekend. In another Newman’s Trophy game Nelson edged out Ashburton 2-1.

Wellington beat Waikato, 10-0, in a late game last evening. Results, page 36